IF you’re like me, you’re sick to death of the Barnaby Joyce story already and it has only been out there for little more than a day.
And oh, how the Op-Eds rolled out, like a torrent spewed out by the terabyte.
What we might kindly call the new media babbled on about conspiracies between the press gallery and the parliament. Democracy denied was the collective shriek, as if the readers of these inner-city websites were exclusively the denizens of New England.
Joyce won New England with a 7 per cent swing and if an election was held in his seat tomorrow my best guess is he would win by a similar margin.
Even during the campaign Twitter knew. I knew and I didn’t care. Indeed, during the New England by-election campaign, mainstream media reported Joyce was no longer living at the family home. Any journalist worth his or her salt could have chased the story down.
Full column here.
Yep, ramp up the proxy war in Syria to draw attention away from the volatile stock market.
Live life to the full kids, Trump is a loose very large cannon.
Correct me if I am wrong but wasn’t it 130kg fat Kim Jong un who threatened to Nuke Australia amongst other countries Mr Baptiste? Yes it was so we know who the very large loose cannon is don’t we. Meanwhile POTUS Trump wants a big Military Parade in Washington to show gooses like Kimmie what he is up against should he “pull the pin”. Cheers
Donald is the goose, half brother to Donald Duck. What is with people with 5 letter surnames starting with T. While on the poultry theme, what is it with Colonel Sanders Huckabee?
Sanders Huckabee makes me want to smash my television set in Gryzly. Given that I have stopped watching ABC Australian news over here and try not too watch BBC nor CNN in case I catch a glimpse of Trump, I keep catching her on Al-Jazeera…..aaahhh
btw I have fallen in love with Ha Noi beer
Be honest Henry. If North Korea is attacked. I see the VPOTUS is in South Korea trying to put the skids under any attempt at reconciliation. “You must remain enemies and buy our weapons.”
WTF has that got do with the latest in Syria anyway?
Large loose cannon?
Fat loose cannon.
look squirrel
https://www.rt.com/usa/418267-uranium-one-clinton-fbi/
You had Pence taking over a month ago! For gods sake old bean coordinate your conspiracies please.
Evidence?
I believe we are all a bit crazy its just to what degree.
You do sound like you may be quite a few shillings short of a pound JFOTCN maybe a career in Politics for you. Cheers
And since we are all a bit crazy it would be hard to determine to what degree one thinks.
When politicians stop imagining every aspect of our lives is their business, we might return the courtesy.
And that is one of the best comments on any subject that I have read in a long time.
Thank-you.
You can always rely on TBLS to make a succinct comment, but I agree it was an excellent comment
Aw shucks!
I preferred your stuff about being strung up by the nipples!!
Me too.
Scathing attack in The Monthly as to how Dutton has militarised Customs and made it an instrument of opression.Many have resigned in disgust.Some have chosen to break the silence and speak out.One employee summed it up when he said there are times when we have to be tough but the crunch came when he said the Liberals ENJOY the cruelty they preside over.
I wonder how they sleep at night Bassy,
It should be compulsory for all government ministers to NOT be missing a chip or three up-top.
Dutton is a perfect example of that.
You are a woman…tell me how Looter wives sleep what with their maternal genes, softer natures etc knowing their husbands cuddle and kiss their kids, talk small talk over the nightly dinner table whilst refugees they preside over are writhing in heat and misery.These are people who have committed NO CRIMES and designated genuine refugees. I would expect even ONE wife to speak but no…not even ONE!
Not even a Drs wife. Its a case of taking the money and running. Toe the party line. Both sides of politics guilty as hell.
Spot on TBLS!
Cheers, Mac!
Good piece JTI but what’s the difference between Gillard’s personal life & his private life?
JG’s despicable treatment wasn’t off-limits in Parliament or in print.
Not only was she “deliberately barren” so her partner was “gay”, her dress sense was slammed & even more personal insults involved her deceased father. All fair-game it seemed so why now this suggestion that Joyce ‘deserves’ a ‘better’ deal if a lady in the highest office didn’t get an iota of one?
Why does he get preferencial treatment?
This is the same guy who warned Australians that the Asian countries might view us as “decadent” if we went ahead with SSM law & raved about the sanctity of traditional marriage.
As far as I’m concerned Gina’s little Galilee Basin award-winning puppet’s private dalliance has no relevance in my world, however, his blatant disregard for Queensland’s environment absolutely does.
It’s long past time the media asked the questions on Joyce’s relationship with Gina Rinehart re the proposed Adani rail line.
I wasn’t necessarily talking about Joyce. Just had a discussion on ABC Sydney with Wendy Harmer & Robbie Buck with a few callers thrown in. My point is the system we have now in both state and federal parliaments and the sort of fishbowl existence MPs endure is an active deterrent for talented people to get involved. The sacrifices are too great and the pitfalls too horrible.
There seems to be no end of candidates lining up for the gig though?
natch
where do I sign
I am a crab with a gob
There certainly are, Bassy. The job comes with recognition and perks. But how good are they? As Jack says, why would anyone talented want the job!
The financial rewards may be tempting to some but the social impact on normal family life with the Canberra commute is pretty tough.
The perks are better than the salaries they get paid.
I imagine there must be huge sacrifices JTI, but they know that before they decide to go down that road.
No-one blames them if they quit, whether it’s for family reasons or not, but they generally do not leave.
I think it’s just naked ambition at the expense of any family responsibilities and certainly it’s the money, along with those generous perks, is why they bust themselves to stay.
I don’t believe too many got into that business for us.
Your title could be an Ugly business for showy people. 🐬
Yes according to the Liberals and Nations Ms Gillard was Deliberately barren, her father died of shame, she should be stuffed in sack and thrown in the river. Yet Ms Bishop says it is fine and dandy for Taxpayes to pay for her younger attractive boyfriend to attend the various parties and Polo at taxpayers expense.
The worst thing I remember about the treatment of Gillard was the reporting of Hockey and Abbott walking behind her in the corridors of parliament hissing terrible things about her under their breaths so audible that only Gillard could hear them. Deplorable behavior but what I expect from this cruel lot. What low down miserable cowards were Hockey and Abbott.
And I heard they put boogers in her lunch and said she had girl germs!
Seriously, mate.
This is the truth. Read more widely. Adds up when you take in the vile Abbott spewed at her so you could imagine what would be said in private…. only I am not imagining it.
I was so traumatized I haven’t checked my watch since!
I’m not going to argue with you, B’MAN. You believe what you believe. Nothing I say is ever going to change it.
Never mind about Barnaby – check this out: https://twitter.com/hashtag/IceCricket?src=tren&data_id=tweet%3A961551973177688064
Pretty cool, Triv
https://www.amazon.com/Penguins-Stopped-Play-Village-Cricketers/dp/0719563461
I don’t believe Barnaby’s travails are public fare. I’m not only yet to see a perfect politician, I’m yet to see a perfect anyone. Churchill, Gandhi, Mandela, great names with very ordinary and human frailties. Australia has had it’s share shameful actors, Hawke, Cairns, Evans and the gross little spiv, Al Grassby. Among others. They appear in all careers, and across time; Warne, Monash, Carey, Norman. It would be a long list. Media coverage can only worsen an already fraught situation. Politicians are entitled to a private life.
Why are politicians entitled to a private life? You want to give them licence to do whatever they like, regardless of what they purport to represent?
You either want to be a politician or you don’t. It’s a relatively easy path to the attention sought. . Strive hard in other fields and make a name for yourself and see how you go if you get caught out. The press will be all over you. Especially if you made it in part due to a platform that is fraudulent.
A ban on sex between politicians and their staff is being suggested by independent Federal MP Cathy McGowan, Mr Insider. Obviously sweet Cathy has no follow up idea on how this will be policed! Possibly we may have to recruit some “Bonking Police” (BP), nice work if you can get it.
https://tinyurl.com/ybbas94e
Another electrical glitch in Adelaide’s new expensive hospital whilst backup power software systems were being tested . Two operating theatres with procedures underway were plunged into 20 minutes of darkness and chaos without power. Surgeon comments that he had instruments inside a 97yr old patient undergoing a complicated procedure. Fortunately the patient survived.
Oblique references were made about the difficulty of complying with strict green energy requirements. I don’t know the details of that. It’s not the point of the point I’m making here. So don’t get your knickers in a predictable knot Dismal.
Surely if a system is to be tested, the very fact that it is being tested would suggest some uncertainty. In which case wouldn’t it be crucial to ensure no vital procedures were in progress whilst the test is underway? The testing of any software usually requires all users out. Crikey – in this case one would hope it’s fake news!
You’d have to go to the horse’s mouth for that Boa. Btw, lately we’ve been getting exposed to ‘Chaos Engineering’ which is a newish field whereby companies inject failure into their systems (killing servers etc) to gauge their capacity to stay up and running. Netflix is doing it 100% of the time. Operates on the old tenet of ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ and theoretically forces viable redundancy and better overall design. Maybe that’s what they were doing and they’re not quite there?
”What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” – I hope they told that to the patients who were on the table at the time or more relevantly, those waiting to go into theatre, Triv!
Were it me, I’d be inclined to ask if I could please transfer elsewhere – interstate! Seriously!
Seems they forgot to fill up the generator with fuel (really!) and the alarm was ignored by the overseer 2.5hours into a 4hr test – and the switchback software failed. Something along those lines. Christ.
Horse’s mouth then. And Jay Weatherill is not the horse.
The dullards forgot to put fuel in the back up generation system, there was a big mea culpa on Adelaide news last night, you obviously don’t get that news service. Nothing to do with the renewables. Calm down.
Yvonne, Why comment on something you admit you have no idea about? Have you ever been involved with commissioning large systems? The articles about this state the system did not come back online after maintenance and running on the generators. this is just another issue the main contractor had to fix. This had Nothing to with Power in the state. This world class hospital will serve the people if SA for Decades to come. The SA Liberals tried everything they could to stop the building of this state of the art facility. you need to have a good hard look at yourself.
Are large systems like long BBQ ques?
I may not know much about the operating system of the hospital – nor do you.
I read various reports from various sources on what happened.
The point I made, and still make, is that you don’t test or run maintenance on live systems. In this instance the ‘live” parts were real people – lucky to still be alive.
I was listening to Peter Hartcher on Richard Glover’s political forum, tonight. He opined that if we went down the American or British Tabloid Media path of scrutiny, we word end up with a worse, less competent, more apt to corruption than the present mob.
Interesting. My first thought was there are at least five people contending for every lower house seat, up to 100 for each senate seat, hardly a hard to fill position. My second thought, could they be any worse than Peter Dutton, Matt Caravan, Christopher Pyne, Tony Abbott, Sophie Mirabella, Craig Kelly Craig Laundy? Or on the other side, Craig Thompson, that harpy married to John Dellabosca, Bill Ludwig’s idiot son, and all one nation MPs.
doesn’t matter much to me, the best PM of my lifetime had a lively private life, to say the least.
Private Lives, isn’t that a Noel Coward play?
Maybe Natalie can write her own book Jack….
Howard always struck me as a devoted family man.
Rumours in Canberra about him for years. Couldn’t imagine it myself. Like Barnaby: ‘Who’d want to?’
he was good but there is a difference between good and best.
my favourite turned the country around and we are still enjoying the benefits of that, your bloke helped finished off that work, but both were leading proper cabinet governments, something we haven’t enjoyed for a while.
Good comment jack. Yes, one does miss them.
thank you Penny and Dwight, a Friday chuckle is a good laugh